Doha: US Secretary of State John Kerry will hold a three-way meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Saudi counterpart Adel Al Jubeir, with discussions expected to centre on Syria during a meeting in Doha today.
“A key topic of discussion is expected to be the ongoing crisis in Syria,” a senior State Department official said.
The meeting times up perfectly with Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s announcement that Russia is having a change of heart in Syria and may ‘give up’ on Al Assad.
“Putin’s current attitude toward Syria is more encouraging than before,” Erdogan told a group of journalists on his presidential jet as he returned from a trip to Asia.
“He is no longer of the opinion that Russia will support Al Assad to the end. I believe he can give up Al Assad,” he was quoted as saying by the Daily Sabah and Sabah dailies.
On Sunday, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said in a televised address that his country’s July 14 nuclear agreement with the West had created better prospects for faster solutions in Syria and Yemen.
“The final solution in Yemen is political, in Syria the final solution is political,” he said. “The agreement will create a new atmosphere. The climate will be easier.” Kerry’s Doha talks with his six counterparts from the GCC will also aim to allay fears about Iran after the nuclear deal.
“This is an opportunity, really, for the secretary to do a deep dive with the GCC foreign ministers to try to respond to any remaining questions that they might have and hopefully to satisfy them and ensure that they’re supporting our effort going forward,” a State Department official said.
Gulf states have raised concerns about Iran’s regional ambitions following the recent accord in Vienna with the United States and Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia.
Kerry landed in Qatar on Sunday evening after a weekend visit to Egypt, where he also sought to assure his counterpart Sameh Shukri and President Abdul Fattah Al Sissi that the landmark deal would bring more security to the Middle East.
“There can be absolutely no question that if the Vienna plan is fully implemented, it will make Egypt and all the countries of this region safer than they otherwise would be or were,” Kerry told a joint news conference with Shukri.
Egypt like other regional states remains suspicious of Iran, which has backed President Bashar Al Assad’s regime in Syria and Al Houthi militants in Yemen.
Kerry said the US recognised that “Iran is engaged in destabilising activities in the region - and that is why it is so important to ensure that Iran’s nuclear programme remains wholly peaceful”.
“If Iran is destabilising, it is far, far better to have an Iran that doesn’t have a nuclear weapon than one that does,” he said at the Cairo press conference.
